UPDATE ON MY NEW LIFE WHO DIS

TL;DR: I have been an Austin resident for 1 month. The magical thing I'm learning is that it's fantastically simple to change my entire life, the part that requires training is allowing my mind to ride along. I'm also getting the answers to a lot of questions I've been asking myself for a long time. Upon reflection, my arrival in July was like the beginning of a Rube Goldberg, setting off an elaborate beautifully timed out chain of events. In quick succession an apartment, two jobs and a relationship all popped up in my path. 

I left Austin in the beginning of August, wrapping up what was likely the most transformative 5 weeks of my life to travel with my mother to Vancouver and Los Angeles for some family time, meeting up with various (almost every single person in our incredibly small) family members over the next 2 weeks. 

Originally, after Los Angeles, I was headed to Spain and Portugal for a week at the end of August to cap off my summer. The idea was to field test my YOLO skills in completely unfamiliar territory, but when it became clear that Austin was in fact the final destination, I chose to pull the plug on Spain and redirect that money to my move. I packed up my apartment over the course of a week, selling off my big ticket items and literally FedExing myself my clothes and accoutrements that I couldn't stand to sell. I got down here to Austin and then next day, bought a car (and by bought I mean financed and by financed I mean that this car will literally be my ride or die until its tits fall off.) The hurricane (Harvey) hit and I started my job two days later. It's been nonstop. I've been experiencing so much change, that I needed some time to regroup and process all of the shifts. 

ERM, wait, that's not the complete story of what happened and why I have been silent Sammy. What happened was I have found myself in a relationship that brings me so much joy, I want to forget about all my earthly responsibilities and just drink in all the joy that it brings me. And so here I am now, popping my head up above ground to be like wow, there's a lot of lessons I've been experiencing and I'm pumped that I'll process them through and tell you about them. I was initially nervous to be honest and open about what's going on, because EEK what if I write about my relationship and then it explodes? But then I'm doing us all a disservice because that's not the point. The point is to get out there and try and that's the only way I can really live! I gotta be brave! 

To recap the top line - Summer of YOLO has certainly lived up to its own hype. Everywhere I turn I see evidence of receiving what I have been asking for (silly things like, I want a boyfriend that will come to yoga with me and big things like I want to wake up and be pumped to go to work even if I only slept 3 hours) so it seems that I have been reaping all the seeds I'd planted through listening to myself and doing my best to LIVE MY TRUTH (I WISH THERE WAS A BETTER WAY OF SAYING THAT, BUT YOU KNOW WHAT, THERE ISN'T, SO CRINGE AWAY, I'M COOL). 

And that's the start of the news from the front lines over here. More soon. Stay tuned. 

WHEN DID YOU STOP TRUSTING YOURSELF?

For a long, long time – I’ve been hidden. Holding the important things safe, close to me, protected. 

TL:DR; It has taken a solid ten years to start unraveling the layers of protective wrap. 

In my 20s, my priority was safeguarding myself above all else. I could tumble through life protected and safe, free from judgment! It was a win win win!

AND HOW DID MY DELUSION WORK OUT FOR ME? READ ON! 

Recently someone asked me, "when did you stop trusting yourself?" The honest answer is college. I was confident AF in high school and breezed through those 4 years waking up every day pumped to go to school, be on my sports team, date, talk about boys, be in the gossip wheel, and just generally live a teen movie as my actual life. I know that I am infinitely blessed to have had that experience. My insecurities though, came out to play when it was time to pick a college. I was too afraid of rejection and what it would mean about me to even apply to the schools I really wanted to attend. So instead, I picked one school that I was overqualified to attend, applied binding early decision and took away all the elements of fear/ uncertainty/ unknown entities.  

If now is where you give up, the takeaway is safety is an illusion.

The opposite of feeling safe, my first two years at college were such a reality check hot mess that it culminated in an existential meltdown at the beginning of my junior year. I was left questioning everything and completely bewildered at how much I didn't know myself. Instead of doing the work to dig in to my identity, my hopes, my dreams, I decided I could fake my way to 'be normal.' I hooked myself a 'normal' boyfriend and pretended EVERYTHING WAS A-OK. If I had a cool normal boyfriend, I was ok, right? RIGHT?? SHOVE THOSE FEELINGS DOWN GIRL, that never goes wrong! My gut told me to drop out of school, but I trusted everyone else's opinion and not my own. ALAS, I like learning things the hard way. 

IF YOU STOP READING NOW - THE TAKEAWAY HERE IS LIVE YOUR OWN LIFE, YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE THAT LIVES WITH YOUR CHOICES. BLOCK OUT THE NOISE FROM OTHER PEOPLE. 

So, FAKING IT UNTIL I WAS MAKING IT WAS THE NAME OF THE GAME Y'ALL. I figured I could do the work externally. Of course, I didn't realize I was doing this consciously, it just sort of happened. I call it societal programming. Moved to New York to pursue being a power couple with the boyfriend. Tried to be whoever I needed to be to keep the boyfriend BECAUSE BOYFRIEND MEANS I AM AWESOME (spoiler: ultimately lose the boyfriend). Changed my hair until I felt like I looked the part (Instagram has some of the evidence, but know that I've tried all variations of long hair, short hair, black hair, bangs, blonde, highlights, red and pink). Bought clothes until I felt like I looked the part. Dated all the men in the world who appeared to have their life together so that it would appear like I had my life together. NEVER ASKED MYSELF AND WHAT IS THE PART? DO YOU EVEN LIKE ANY OF THESE GUYS? WHAT WAS THE ROLE I WAS TRYING TO FULFILL? I DON'T EVEN KNOW. A HEX ON YOUR HOME, SOCIETAL PROGRAMMING! Are you seeing the theme? Desperation for some co-signing.

I looked on with envy/ longing/ confusion/ wonder when I saw other people follow their dreams. How do they deal with the possible rejection? The possible judgment? I CAN'T EVEN MANAGE TO TELL PEOPLE WHAT I REALLY LIKE. Eventually it started to bother me that people were judging my "fake life" as my real life. Then I felt like I had a secret life and a public life. It was weird. Oof, what a tangled web. The problem with being hidden is that I got so good at hiding, I was hidden even to me.

If you stop reading here, the takeaway is to ask yourself what you like. 

EVENTUALLY I started to realize I needed to do the work on my own, that I wasn't going to get where I needed to get going to through my outer appearance or through who I was dating. Side note, I sound awesome, right? 

Here are some things I learned: 

Cool platinum hair doesn't make me a cool person. Long hair doesn't automatically protect me from rejection and mean dudes will love me. A wild undercut from a barber doesn't magically turn me into a take no prisoners badass. (THERE WERE A LOT OF WISHFUL HAIRCUTS). Being quiet doesn't make me mysterious or more likely to be liked, being a loud person doesn't make me instantly popular or appear more confident... THE LIST COULD GO ON FOR..EV...ER. I THINK I MAY HAVE TRIED EVERYTHING. AND I MEAN EVERYTHING. 

All these attempts at escape, including a significant move and a 180 on my career trajectory and guess what, I WAS STILL ME WITH ALL THE SAME PROBLEMS. WHYYYYYYY. (we're up to age 27 at this point) 

And yet, I STILL RAN from knowing myself. Until it just became too hard to pretend anymore, and I realized it wasn't serving me well to keep my secrets so guarded. I started pursuing my likes (REIKI & KUNDALINI YOGA WHATS UP) on my own and telling a few people about my secret dreams, the ones that seemed possible at least. I wrote down in a journal my desire to form a small group circle where people could talk earnestly about their lives, mirroring the experience I had in high school of my Bible study group which was less Bible study and more support. Do not doubt the power of the written word, because within 1 month I found myself surrounded with a community of people who are uplifting, positive and driven. Then, through the power of the ask because of the encouragement from a best friend, I was at the helm of the Circles program through the Medi Club community. Within 6 months of writing out my secret hopes, I was helping connect others, forming new friendships and even finding my voice as part of a large community. IT WAS THRILLING. In fact, I hadn't felt more alive in a long time. 

And after a while, it dawned on me, why did I think that I wasn't deserving of my wildest dreams? If I'm living either way, why choose to live a life that's not the best expression of my soul? I had to ask myself the hard questions, block out the noise and focus on finding out what the hell I saw for myself as my purpose. I found my way through yoga, meditation, journaling and connecting honestly with friends. Courage and confidence are crucial, but I cannot stress enough how critical it is to surround yourself with a peer group that is positive, encouraging and making SHIT HAPPEN. My friends are my biggest champions and help give me my power to live authentically. 

Once I found myself surrounded by people who believed in themselves, I was able to build back my own foundation stronger than ever. The courage of the group gave me courage.

Community is everything to me and that's what's up right now. 

KAYAK MEET YOUR MAKER (Just kidding, but I did go again)

So this weekend I took on the kayak again for round two. This time I went armed with something new, my Uber driver. 

"Let's start at the very beginning, A very good place to start...."  

You know how it is. You go out for a night, hit a couple bars, learn how to dance the two-step and get home starved. There’s only one cure, Late Night Eats. Preferably something completely unhealthy and delicious. In college my go-to was McDonald’s or Taco Bell, at home in Brooklyn, I like my corner bodega deli sandwich. Here in Austin, I ordered an Uber for me and my friend to P. Terry's. And that is where our story begins.

As we loaded into the car, we were greeted with some sweet Taylor jams at full blast. Immediately, the sing along and dance party begins. As as jammed out, we sped past the P. Terry's. Dumbstruck, I was like wait, that's where we want to go. "Girls, girls," our driver told us, "that's closed. I picked up your ride because I knew y'all needed to get to know Whataburger." This one's a 5 star ride y'all. Interspersed with the 90s throwbacks, we talked about douchey guys and just generally were stupid and fun. By the end of the trip, we'd really bonded on this ride and when our driver dropped us back off at the apt, he asked to follow me on Instagram (now this isn't actually weird here, almost half the ride-share people I've subsequently had we've traded info). I thought that was the end of the story, hilarious Uber ride to burgers, new follower, win-win. 

AND YET, IT WAS NOT.

Later that week he made me a video on Instagram saying I was his favorite client and that no one was as fun as me. Obviously, I enjoyed that and thought it was hilarious. I ended up following him back on Instagram and then I followed him on twitter. We started tweeting dumb things back and forth. And then this past weekend, I get a tweet saying we should kayak based on my Instagram post about failing at kayaking. I was on my way down to the lake already, so why not get some company? After all, I don't really know anyone here. Who can turn down company that knows how to save the day on late night burgers and says you are their favorite rider? NOT ME. 

So that's how I ended up kayaking again. This time with a new friend. We had a blast. I actually didn't have any problems this time around, but I definitely still prefer stand up paddle. 

I will keep you posted on any developments here, because obviously becoming best friends with my Uber driver is something I would do. 

I asked myself what I wanted. Here I am.

“When someone is seeking,” said Siddhartha, “it happens quite easily that he only sees the thing that he is seeking; that he is unable to find anything, unable to absorb anything, because he is only thinking of the thing he is seeking, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means to have a goal; but finding means to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal. You, O worthy one, are perhaps indeed a seeker, for in striving toward your goal, you do not see many things that are under your nose.” — Herman Hesse, Siddhartha

I'm starting my third week in Austin. I felt a pull to come here that I just could no longer ignore. 

For so many years, I've been seeking to put together a life that externally validates me. I seek approval from outside sources to make sure that I am on the right path. I rarely check with myself to see what I want. Asking myself what's right for me, just me, not me accommodating for other's perceived and real expectations, has been the challenge of my life. For the past two years, I've been working hard to open myself up to possibilities, fight through and identify where I have limiting beliefs, but most of all, I've been working on being brave. 

It's only been recently that I've begun to share with people my true feelings and desires.

What I've found has been electrifying. When I started telling people about my dreams for my life, I didn't get the harsh judgment I thought I'd get. It turns out, when I am authentic, it resonates. People feel it. I find that people want to help me. It's roller coaster scary. Why?

BECAUSE GOD DAMMIT WE CAN MAKE OUR DREAMS COME TRUE. 

It can feel like it's too late. It can feel like I'm not deserving, but guess what? I decided the point on being on this earth is to find out what my purpose is and align myself with it to the best of my ability. It's to be me! It's to not hold back, it's to be brave and it's to do my best to enjoy each moment. 

Ever since I visited Austin a few years ago, it became my vision of heaven on earth. I would see myself in the backyard of a funky home in a long dress, holding a big bowl of good food to share with unidentified friends and family. 

Once I opened myself up to the possibility that I can travel on my own, it kept coming up. If I think Austin is heaven, why am I not there finding out?

So here I am. I didn't know a soul when I decided to buy this one way ticket. When people asked me, I answered honestly, I felt called to be here. Guess what, it's even better than I imagined. I don't know what's going to happen next, but I am sitting on the edge of my seat to find out. 

Let me tell you about my boat

This week I went kayaking for the first time. There are two options at the rental center and I’d been paddleboarding for the last 5 times. I’d never tried kayaking, and it was time to try. I grabbed a paddle and a life jacket. As I plopped myself into the kayak, I didn’t ask for any instructions or inform them that I had no idea what I was doing.

I figured, I’d watched people kayak before, how hard can it be to execute?

Immediately, it was apparent that this required skill and that I was severely lacking.

As I flailed around in my kayak, flinging water everywhere like a distressed animal fighting for its life, I realized some things:

1. I am stubborn as a mule

I was close enough to the dock that I could have called for help, even something as simple as, WHICH WAY TO I USE THE PADDLE? CURVE TO ME OR AWAY FROM ME?

I didn’t do that.

I figured I’d continue to splash around a bit, looking foolish for the next few moments, and then it’d click. How much of a learning curve could there be?

10 minutes later, panic struck when it became apparent that because I had so little control over the direction of the boat that I might not make it back to the dock. I alternated between 360 spins, moving in stilted zig-zags and Tokyo drifting my way across the lake.

2. THANK GOD I CAN SWIM

It dawned on my that I can swim and abandoning ship was becoming a likely realistic exit solution if I was not going to be able to navigate my direction or gain any semblance of control.

Having realized that I wasn’t going to require outside intervention, I doubled down on my flailing.

3. Tenacity and insanity in equal measures

Somehow, I had managed to continue in a forward direction, but was still slapping my paddle about as if I had no ability to control my limbs (perhaps I didn’t?)

As other fellow lake goers glided gracefully by, I’d shout out things like, “IT’S OKAY I’M A NEW DRIVER,” and “I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I AM DOING,” and most importantly, “I’M SORRY BUT I AM CERTAIN THAT I CAN’T AVOID A DIRECT COLLISION.” Yes, I crashed into the same family twice. It was then that I got my first tip, “the paddle faces the other direction, sweetie!”

To get my full money’s worth, I felt it certain that I needed to be on the water for an hour. When I managed to make it back to the dock, I was spent. It was ugly, but I felt accomplished. Next time, I might ask for help.

How did I get here?

For 2017, I told myself I needed to get out in the world. It started by accident, like most things. Two dear friends invited my along on their vacation to go cross-country skiing in Austria. It sounded fun, but out of reach for me. I can't go to Europe! It's too expensive! It's too fancy. I'll do what I've always done for vacation, chill with family and friends out on the West Coast. They asked again, told me some numbers. My peers were traveling to far off places all the time, why did I feel like this was something that I couldn't do? 

So, this past traveled February I ended up my time in Austria with a solo German vacation for a few days. I'd never traveled completely on my own before. I wandered the neighborhoods of Munich, I hopped on the train to Salzburg on a whim. I spent time quietly, on my own terms. I asked myself what I liked to do. Most importantly, I resolved to do it again, but bigger.

As a teacher, I have two months free and clear. Last year, I opted to stay in New York to build my community and enjoy the staycation. This year, well this year I was going to stretch. I was going to live somewhere else. At first I thought I would go back to Europe, but then I listened to my heart and it was saying something else entirely. 

I've been dreaming of Austin since I visited a few years ago. Call it my Shangri-La. When I picture my future, it is in a small rustic house with a backyard, perfect for casual outdoor entertaining. I kept closing my eyes and seeing myself here. It was my fantasy. It hit me on the head so many times, I had to do it. After a glass of wine at the Dallas Fort-Worth airport on the way to visit family in California this April, I channeled Lorelai Gilmore and Elizabeth Gilbert and pulled the trigger on a one way ticket to Austin. From that one action, a two month travel journey organically flowed my way. 

I'm calling it summer of YOLO.